APOD: Star Formation in the Tadpole Nebula (2017 May 07)

[APOD Robot]

Star Formation in the Tadpole Nebula

Explanation: What's all of the commotion in the Tadpole nebula? Star formation. Dusty emission in the Tadpole nebula, IC 410, lies about 12,000 light-years away in the northern constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga). The cloud of glowing gas is over 100 light-years across, sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from embedded open star cluster NGC 1893. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, bright newly formed cluster stars are seen all around the star-forming nebula. Notable near the image center are two relatively dense streamers of material trailing away from the nebula's central regions. Potentially sites of ongoing star formation in IC 410, these cosmic tadpole shapes are about 10 light-years long. The featured image was taken in infrared light by NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

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[Boomer12k]

On the right, I see a man in a hat...

Nice Image...

:---[===] *

[De58te]

With the wide open laughing mouth? I see him. At first I thought it was Zimba the Lion King because his nose is more catlike. Also the white band you say is a hat could be the lion's mane. Just a slight flaw, the chin is pointing outward instead of inward, as if he has a goatee beard.

[NCTom]

On the enlarged image two objects are visible on the far right hand side, one above the other. Sort of warped circular, they are a darker and lighter teal color. They appear to be duplicates of each other. Clutter from the image development process?

[Nitpicker]

According to the author-processor, the artifact appears on all the frames in the WISE IRSA. I'm not sure if he means all from this object, or all frames of all objects.

[geckzilla]

The teal-colored warped donuts are artifacts called optical ghosts. They are reflections of bright sources against pieces of the telescope. To understand them better, you could read the documentation. See section ii. http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/rele ... c4_3f.html

[Nitpicker]

Ah, the two teal artifacts are not duplicates. There are bright stars just to the right of both. You can only just see the diffraction spikes on the upper star.

[NCTom]

Thanks, Nitpicker and Geck. The background article on ghosts, etc was informative bringing back memories of astronomy classes 45 years ago!

[billbruehl]

Thinking 3D, what is the depth of the image from the dark outer edges all the way into the deep red center?

[Nitpicker]

Thinking 3D, what is the depth of the image from the dark outer edges all the way into the deep red center?

No one really knows. Radial distances are hard to measure precisely, when objects are so far away.

However, a good rule of thumb is to imagine objects like this to be roughly spheroidal or ovoid (not entirely unlike some kinds of footballs).

So, based on the APOD description of the cloud being "100 light-years across", the best estimate of the distance from the outside to the centre is perhaps 50 light-years.

[billbruehl]

ty It helps to visualize these things in 3d otherwise it's easy to think of them all as flat. Today's hugely blue galaxy is a good example of how I'll visualize it differently now.